Steve Carey, Associate Professor of Biology, University of Mobile

Exploration

One of the greatest things about being on a storm chasing trip when there are no storms are the many random, unique, and awesome places that I’d most likely never go to under normal circumstances.

This morning we left Carlsbad, NM in search for new ground as we hit the road for north Texas in order to be in position for the developing storms off the dry line tomorrow. Along the way we stopped at the Texan sand dunes and a meteor crash site. Unfortunately though there have still been no alien sitings, even though we’ve been to Roswell and back. Who’d have guessed we wouldn’t have seen any?

The parts of New Mexico and Texas that we’ve been in haven’t seen rain in over 90 days. Needless to say, everything is extremely dry and dusty. We’ve seen several dust devils over the past couple of days, including the one that directly hit the van as we were driving yesterday! Thankfully they’re so weak that it did nothing more than shake the van a little bit. I’m happy to report that we’re all alive and well.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) will be our first full chase day! The conditions are looking right for storm producing which means we’ll be on the road all day as we get into what we hope will be the best position to intercept the storms.